


got that lamplit cigarette silhouette, ma’am (but the alley’s still dark as ever)

by philthestone



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, THE WORLD WAR TWO AU NOBODY ASKED FOR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 17:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6088848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy swore by a Bible he didn't wholly believe in that she'd been put on God's green Earth solely to run a sort-of-illegal establishment under the Germans' noses. It was, perhaps, the only thing he and Spock agreed on consistently: both speaking with an uncharacteristic undercurrent of admiration beneath their words of the young woman with the beautiful dark skin and silver tongue who so gracefully built up a home for misfits on the broken outskirts of the center of the war. </p><p>Nyota, sitting up against the counter, would rub at the textured glass of her earrings and tell them to hush up, eyebrows severe and eyes dancing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	got that lamplit cigarette silhouette, ma’am (but the alley’s still dark as ever)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i wrote a terrible version of this au two years ago and i just LOVE IT SO MUCH i had to rewrite it and post it
> 
> a few things:  
> \- i actually did my research on this ages ago and it is totally possible for a woman of colour to have been running a tavern in the forties in france. unlikely, but possible  
> \- just like. go with it okay  
> \- im not sure where im going with this and its unlikely that there will be a sequel  
> \- pls forgive for any ooc business  
> \- im so tired rn imma just post this
> 
> reviews are beautiful piano music and me doing well in school [lays down on the floor]

It started, as these things do, when Carol Marcus – twenty-five years of age and possessing a singing voice only marginally less attractive than her employer’s – stepped out into the damp April air of the alleyway to indulge in a cigarette. 

It was a routine pastime, taking solace in the solitude, and there was nothing to indicate that that particular night’s experience would be anything special. If one was to ignore (as Carol did) the echoing sirens of planes overhead, the damp night air could be considered almost peaceful.

Carol, tucking a wisp of her blonde hair back into its updo, rubbed her pale arms to protect them from the chill of the night air. The alley behind the tavern contrasted to the warmth and chaos of the interior; wet and cold, with the opposing wall’s plaster crumbling. The old Carnival posters from years before, abandoned after the war began, were peeling and nearly-disintegrated against the brick. Carol gathered her skirts and stepped over the sewage seeping through the cracked cobblestones. The cool air was refreshing, and it prompted her to roll back shoulders as she produced a small silver lighter from within her brassier in the privacy of the narrow alley. If she were to reach forward with one hand, she could touch her fingertips to the opposing wall.

Turning on her heeled foot, she lifted the cigarette to her lips.

She froze.

Stared.

Dropped the cigarette.

**

“I think that teenaged waiter of yours is waterin’ down the drinks again, darlin’.”

The Southern drawl carried over the bar to where the bartender was wiping glasses with a clean rag. She turned to look at the familiar scruffy face raising an eyebrow at her from over the counter.

“That bad, huh?”

“Could be worst,” McCoy consented, swirling the pale amber liquid in his glass. “You got any bourbon?”

“For you, doc?” She set the glass down on the table and crouched down to check in the lower cabinets. “Probably. But you have to promise me something.”

“And what’s that?”

“No arguing with Spock tonight.”

“We engage in philosophical debates; not arguments,” came Spock’s voice – his barely-accented English as precise and textbook as ever – from the far end of the bar where he was meticulously cleaning the strings of his precious piano. “There is a difference between the two.”

“You try and get a rise out of each other, that’s what,” retorted Nyota, frowning into the sparsely-occupied cabinet. They were running out of liquor, and shipments of _anything_ were precarious and unpredictable, these days. Despite herself, her lips twitched at Spock's words, and she let her hair fall into her face as she emerged gripping a dusty bottle of alcohol. She set it down sharply on the counter. “Here you go, doc. Straight out of the bottle, so it won’t be tampered with.”

“You’re an angel sent from heaven, sweetheart,” he said, looking at the bottle with something akin to reverence.

“And you drink too much,” she said, turning back to her glass-wiping.

“But I pay you to do it,” McCoy argued, pouring himself a glass. “So you can’t really complain.”

“Hmph.”

“Are you gonna join me for a drink, Spock?” said McCoy, looking back over to Spock, who pursed his lips slightly and looked uncomfortable. His shirtsleeves were pushed back, and he held the oiled rag in his hands stiffly in his lap, as one would hold a weapon. Nyota lifted the now-clean glass in front of her face, pretending to inspect it for any remaining smudges in order to hide her smile.

“I do not believe so, doctor.”

“I thought you people didn’t go to Hell for drinking,” grumbled McCoy, swallowing half of his bourbon in one go. “Or was that someone else?”

“My abstaining from alcohol is a personal choice,” said Spock patiently, straightening the hem of his worn brown vest and turning back to his piano. The crude yellow star stitched onto his lapel disappeared from view as he raised his arms and experimentally pressed a few of the keys. 

“So I’ll just have to drink alone, then,” lamented McCoy, finishing his drink. “If that’s not depressin’, I don’t know what is.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” said Nyota, taking the empty glass from him and ignoring his protests. “I pay Spock to play the piano, not get drunk with you – and that’s quite enough for tonight.”

She waved a hand to someone standing on the other side of the room, and McCoy sighed through his nose as Carol Marcus’s sweet crooning filled the crowded room and Spock’s lithe fingers danced over the piano keys. The music was light and smooth, evidence of Spock’s careful maintenance of the age-old instrument clearly manifest.

“It’s just you’n me, I guess,” McCoy told the crack in the polished wooden counter, his voice only vaguely slurred. Nyota rolled her eyes.

To a casual passerby, the hotel was small and uninspiring, situated snugly in the outskirts of Paris and more in need of repairs than not. There was a small tavern on the first floor, and maybe ten rooms that were let overnight to whoever had the means to pay – and on occasion, those who did not. Nyota Uhura claimed the title of owner and barkeep, gliding elegantly through her twenties and – according to a particularly cynical American doctor – possessing more gumption than the entirety of the Allied Forces combined. With her warm smile and sculpted eyebrows, and the uncanny ability to hold together livelihoods with the bits of string found in her pocket, she was the sort of person who could simultaneously intimidate you and make you feel like immediate family. _American_ , was what she told people, full lips tugging into an inscrutable smile.

(McCoy swore by a Bible he didn't wholly believe in that she'd been put on God's green Earth solely to run a sort-of-illegal establishment under the Germans' noses. It was, perhaps, the only think he and Spock agreed on consistently: both speaking with an uncharacteristic undercurrent of admiration beneath their words of the young woman with the beautiful dark skin and silver tongue who so gracefully built up a home for misfits on the broken outskirts of the center of the war. 

Nyota, sitting up against the counter, would rub at the textured glass of her earrings and tell them to hush up, eyebrows severe and eyes dancing.)

The sign over the door read “L’Hôtel Enterprise”. Home to British soldiers, budding jazz singers, coloured trumpet players, American schoolteachers and, on occasion, escaped Jews, it was well-known in some circles and invisible in others.

Its most frequent patrons referred to it affectionately as simply, “The Enterprise”.

Currently, the owner and her slightly-inebriated companion were watching together as the pretty young French girl whom Nyota had taken under her wing manoeuvred her way around the tables, deflecting the men’s shameless flirting with nervous smiles.

“Charlene’s doing well,” McCoy commented, scratching at the clean wooden surface with his index finger. Nyota sniffed.

“I suppose. She’s still far too unsure of herself. And she’s completely taken with that damn trumpet player.”

McCoy laughed.

“Who, M’Benga? He ‘aint so bad – knows something about stitching people up, that’s for sure. Got a nice head on his shoulders;" McCoy's standard of competence inclusive of anyone who had the sensibility to keep themselves out of trouble. “And he’s a damn good trumpet player.”

Nyota rolled her lip between her teeth, privately marvelling once again at how despite his extreme lack of tact, McCoy was by far the least prejudiced Southern Baptist she had ever met. She’d known him a long time – was well accustomed to the mismatched package of idiosyncrasies that was Doctor Leonard McCoy. Ever amused that the fact that a man deathly afraid of flying had ever joined the airforce in the first place, Nyota never tired of hearing his grumbling at her counter.

(“I joined ‘cause I had no place else to go,” he’d told her once, and once only; sitting in the cramped back room on a sack of root vegetables and wrapping up a fresh burn on her hand, the product of her latest foray into kitchen management. “I kinda miss it, sometimes, to tell you to truth.” His hands had been gentle and soft, applying the salve to her palm with a precision that came from many years of practice. “They took all kinds of kids. Even had a Japanese-American boy, but only ‘cause he was the best damn flyer around. Otherwise –”

He’d rolled his eyes, given a non-committal grunt that Nyota had assumed to mean, _damned idiots_ , and gone back to his wrapping job without saying another word.)

Nyota exhaled through her teeth and tapped her chipped fingernails – the only part of her that bespoke wear and tear and hard work – impatiently on the counter in front of her.

“I still don’t like him.”

“Says the woman who _hired_ him –”

“I needed a trumpet player,” said Nyota, slipping a cigarette out from under the counter and lighting it. “And you’re right, he is damn good – oh, sweetheart, don’t take them the soup with the main course,” she added, the light dangling between her slim fingers, speaking to a curly-haired boy no more than seventeen who was balancing two trays of food and drink precariously on his shoulders and two more in his hands. Nyota felt a sigh build up in her chest; he looked hopelessly overwhelmed.

“ _Ne ponimayu_ ,” said the boy helplessly, the flush of pink on his cheeks (no doubt from the steamy warmth of the dingy back kitchen) darkening. Nyota let the sigh escape through her lips.

“Only take them the soup, Pavel,” she repeated in Russian, pointing to the steaming bowls. His face lit up.

“Ah! Only soup! Yes!”

“That kid’s gonna hurt himself one of these days,” McCoy muttered. And, not without a hint of admiration: “Lucky you speak so many languages. Why’d you hire him again?”

“He works cheap,” said Nyota, finally taking a drag of the cigarette, her voice low. “And he’s got nowhere else to go.”

“He’ll be the reason you’ll get killed when unwelcome company knocks on your door,” said McCoy. He paused, glanced at the piano. “Well, not the only reason.”

Nyota frowned, her fingers tightening around the cigarette’s rough paper casing. She felt an involuntary swoop in her stomach, remembering the way Spock had looked at her three days ago in the back room between the potato sacks; pale, but ever-composed, the words, “It would be more logical if I were to leave,” falling apart on his lips as she smacked him.

She could still feel the soft fabric of his threadbare shirt on her fingers – well-kept and mended, barely-rumpled underneath his vest – where her hand had connected with his chest. She swallowed back the lingering remnants of the anger and panic that had inadvertently swelled in her chest.

“I’m not kicking them out.”

“I didn’t say kick them out,” said the doctor hastily. “Hell, what kind of person do you think I am?”

Her glare deepened. McCoy looked pained.

“Just – be careful, is all.”

“I _am_ careful,” insisted Nyota hotly, with a toss of her dark hair. “And so far, _Doctor McCoy_ , the unwanted company has let me be.”

He sighed, glancing again at Spock.

“Yeah.”

Carol’s song finished, the sound of the piano slowly fading out, and Nyota pulled a barstool out and sat down, easing her weight off of her heeled feet. The British soldiers who dropped by occasionally, inconspicuously, were scattered across the small, crowded room. She could hear Montgomery Scott loudly fighting a losing battle trying to drill his way through Pavel’s woeful English in an attempt to order another drink. M’Benga was playing his trumpet up on the stage, and Carol had disappeared; most likely, Nyota thought, to go out for a smoke. Nyota closed her eyes and tried to drown out the sounds of the patrons, focusing on the new tune Spock was playing to accompany M’Benga. Her eyes were closed, but she didn’t dare put her head in her hands; appearances were, after all, most everything in her line of work.

The musical tune of the old piano was soothing, she thought, taking a deep, heavy breath.

“You think those Yankees’ll actually be able to drive ‘em out?”

It was whispered, but still dangerous. Nyota didn’t open her eyes.

“Leonard. You _are_ one of ‘those Yankees’.”

She could hear him grunt with displeasure. “There’s a reason why I ran out on ‘em, darlin’. Seen too many young kids get hurt. I don’t believe in wars.”

She sighed, bringing a hand up to press against her jaw.

“Do any of us?”

“Yeah, well.” McCoy’s voice was brittle; harder than usual, and lacking its gruff warmth. “I’ve seen – there’s things they do. Fill up these idiots’ heads with lies. Navy’s full of bastards, and so’s the airforce.” There was a pause. And then, muttered; nigh-indecipherable: “Still don’t know where he is, damn fool kid. Signin’ up for Pike’s program like some wanna-be hero.”

Nyota’s eyes opened to see him staring into his empty drink once more, a tired, drawn quality about the lines of his face that was – not quite unfamiliar, but more pronounced than usual. She wondered, for the thousandth time, of the unspoken friends and family that McCoy had lost – to what degree and how, her curiosity dancing at the tip of her tongue. She swallowed back her questions and inhaled, placing a hand on his jacket-covered forearm.

“You need another drink?”

McCoy cracked a grin. “You’re too good to me, Nyota.”

She turned to grab herself a glass from the back shelf when she heard McCoy’s voice again, coloured with surprise.

“Slow down there, Miss Marcus. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Nyota looked around to see Carol hovering by the bar, her hands gripping at the shawl covering her shoulders. From McCoy’s other side, Pavel Chekov’s accented voice piped up, setting down an empty tray to be re-filled with fresh drinks.

“Ghosts are true, you know. Zey come originally from Russia.”

“Siddown, kid,” grumbled McCoy, patting Pavel’s shoulder. “You got an extra drink, Nyota?”

“Leonard,” started Nyota, her voice laced with amusement, but Carol cut her off, pushing around Chekov and sliding behind the bar.

“Can I talk to you?” Carol asked, low and strained. Her hand hovered close to Nyota’s elbow as though she was fighting to the urge to grab her arm and drag her away, blonde hair still in its updo, curling softly to frame her face. The single pair of old, heirloom silver earrings she owned dangled over her bare shoulders, the skin their dappled pink from what Nyota assumed was the cold outside, and her curvy frame, covered by her satiny silver dress, was wired and ready to spring away at a moment’s notice. Nyota looked at her with concern.

“Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine! Just a small thing.” She said this while ignoring Pavel’s indignant, “I am speaking ze truth, doctor!” from their other side, the hand that was not positioned close to Nyota’s arm fiddling a hole into a corner of her dress.

Nyota sighed through her nose, prepared for the worst.

“Did you catch Charlene with M’Benga in the back room?”

“No!” said Carol hastily, at the same time that McCoy frowned and said, “M’Benga’s still by the stage.”

“He is actually by ze piano,” said Pavel, tapping his temple wisely.

“Aren’t you s’posed to be fetchin’ some drinks,” said McCoy, and Nyota dug out a bottle of whiskey from under the counter and placed it on Pavel’s tray with a heavy thunk. McCoy huffed.

“Hush up,” Nyota told him, shooing Pavel away with her other hand.

“I didn’t say anythin’ –”

“I _really_ need to talk to you,” Carol interrupted again, her voice rising infinitesimally in pitch. “As in, _now_. In private.”

“Carol –”

 _Please,_ her blue eyes pleaded silently.

Nyota frowned. “Oh, alright. But it’s got to be quick – it’s pretty busy tonight.”

“It’s always busy,” said McCoy helpfully, frowning once more into his empty glass. “I thought you refilled this thing.”

“You thought wrong,” said Nyota as she stepped out from behind the bar and took Carol, who was still glancing around with distinct unease, by the arm. “You’re in charge,” she added, her voice dropping to a whisper. McCoy grumbled something under his breath and fished his personal flask out from his jacket pocket, abandoning the empty glass on the counter.

Being dragged through her tavern by a slightly-hysteric Carol Marcus was, admittedly, not how Nyota had imagine her evening wrapping up. Carol, Nyota knew, was not generally prone to hysterics. She was calm, confident, and knew more than most women did when it came to handling a pistol; admittedly one of the reasons Nyota had hired her, initially. So now, being dragged by the hand through the growing crowd to the back room, Nyota felt some measure of confusion as Carol’s charming smiles, directed towards curious patrons, grew more and more strained. She watched as Carol even went so far as to throw a casual wink in Spock’s general direction as he raised an eyebrow at their hasty retreat, and Nyota gave Spock a pained glance; but the tension radiating from Carol's shoulders and neck, was evident, and everyone could hear the scattered cadence of her heels against the wooden floor.

Nyota’s confusion remained unaddressed until she was yanked through the back room, past the potato sacks and into the startlingly cold air of the back alley, where she finally twisted her arm from Carol’s grip and stared at her friend. Carol’s face was even more pale in the mottled moonlight, and she’d not even bothered to take care where she stepped; her shoe was soaking in the alley sludge to the cobblestones underneath them.

“Carol, what on _Earth_ –”

“There’s a man lying _dead_ right there!”

Nyota froze, her eyes trailing along Carol’s outstretched arm, lingering on her trembling finger before flicking down to the puddle on the ground.

The figure was covered in mud, but the glint of yellow-gold hair was still visible even in the pale moonlight, and there was no mistaking the dark stain of red, intermingled with the muck, on the bomber jacket that covered his back.

Through the sludge, Nyota could see the rank and insignia stitched to the motionless shoulder: _US Airforce, Cadet_.

Nyota’s felt her fingers go numb, one of Dr. McCoy’s favorite expressions tumbling out from between her lips before she could catch herself.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

The man groaned.

" _Jesus, Mary and -_ "

"He's alive!" Carol squeaked, tripping backwards over the cobblestones. "Oh, God, _Nyota_ -"

Nyota felt the air rush back into her lungs, the night air around them suddenly sharp and keen.

"Quick," she heard herself gasp. "Grab his legs."

"Grab his _le -_ "

There was a bang, and Nyota whirled around, the skittering sound of Carol's heels registering in her periphery. She saw Carol take a few shaky steps, and something in Nyota's chest eased; the other woman had the presence of mind to position herself so that her skirt covered the golden glint of the pilot's hair.

Charlene was standing at the entrance to the alley, her brown eyes wide and liquid in the moonlight. Nyota's eyes had the time to drink in the tremble of the girl's hand against the peeling doorframe before she heard her own voice, shaky and uncertain.

"Charlene?"

" _En vitesse_ ," gasped the girl, her voice cracking. "Gestapo are at the door, Madame!"

Nyota froze.

Stared.

Dropped her cigarette.

**Author's Note:**

> if u have questions abt the details of the verse just ask and i'll prolly be able to answer? yeah


End file.
